If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Autopsy Root Cause Analysis Department of Discus Fish.

Hello Al... I was thinking , it would be awesome if owners of dead fish could get a autospy done to figure out why they died, so we can report back to the community with helpful life saving info. Alot of times I see people recommending blindly, meds. Then the fish dies and we don't know why. We can send our dead fish to be anaylzed under a micro, which not all people can afford. You should start this up and give me credit too. Lol . Johney from Garden Grove.

Re: Autopsy Root Cause Analysis Department of Discus Fish.

Hi Johney, members are free to send their fish to whomever offers such a service. It most likely is costly to do that between shipping a frozen fish to a lab, having a necropsy done and providing a report back to the fish owner. I could see that easily costing more then the fish itself.

I think there is plenty of really good information on the forum to help fish keepers prevent untimely deaths of their fish.
Pat

Re: Autopsy Root Cause Analysis Department of Discus Fish.

When ever a fish dies..I want the community to know what they had.... because we the community are invested in that fish too , even though it's not our fish...it would be informative to know... The community wants to know if you we are dosing or recommending the correct meds . Wish Al would start this project . "I was medicating this , when I should of been medicating that " . It's hard to tell what they have sometimes...they will flash but not have ich , but a internal parasite....we would know the best combos to use...plus I want to what is most likely the cause of death to discus too.

Re: Autopsy Root Cause Analysis Department of Discus Fish.

Originally Posted by Johney Blaze

Hello Al... I was thinking , it would be awesome if owners of dead fish could get a autospy done to figure out why they died, so we can report back to the community with helpful life saving info. Alot of times I see people recommending blindly, meds. Then the fish dies and we don't know why. We can send our dead fish to be anaylzed under a micro, which not all people can afford. You should start this up and give me credit too. Lol . Johney from Garden Grove.

Hello Johney,
It would be great to know what killed a fish but unfortunately its not likely to happen. Aquatic Pathologists require living fish. They won't even look at dead ones. Theres also the fact that fish decay very quickly. Best bet is that members send sick fish into the labs but its rarely done as its a one way ticket. So the hobbyist will lose the fish they wanted to save. Its also expensive and intimidating for most hobbyist to ship their fish to a lab, then pay for the analysis... which is not always going to give any useful info.

Hobbyists with sick fish are pretty much left with 2 choices.. Do nothing but keep the fish in clean water and hope for the best or try and treat based largely on symptoms and again hope for the best.

Of course alot of this can be avoided by buying healthy stock,giving good care in terms of food,water, and tank conditions, and using a solid and lengthy quarantine procedure of any new stock.

Experienced members try and help as best they can when someone has sick fish.

In fact I have recently had 2 of my fish pmíd. I donít recall the exact cost, but Iíll dig it up tomorrow.

And the thing is, we learned bugger all from it. Iíll give you a brief case history on one of them:

One large wild green discus, one large Heckel. Both were by far the biggest fish in their respective tanks.

The green was losing condition, feces normal, eating well. Treated with everything but the kitchen sink. Metro, Prazi, Flubendazole, Esha 2000. Not all together obviously but over a period of 2 months. During the whole treatment time the fish remained the same, eating and behaving well, but not gaining. I kept him going for another 4 months (!), same development. I decided to cull the fish to see what was going on and submitted to the resident fish/reptilian specialist vet. In the end nothing abnormal was found, no parasites (internal, external, blood, liver), no bacteria that shouldnít have been there, nothing. Now one could argue the medication eradicated everything that would have been there to find, but after 4 months without treatment and without subsequent recovery or improvement I doubt that is the case.

The heckelís case history is a bit different, but the result was the same.

Long story short, I spent a lot of money for virtually no result. Just the fact that my tanks were parasite free at the time, but looking at the other 50 discus in those tanks I could have told you that for free.

Re: Autopsy Root Cause Analysis Department of Discus Fish.

Another thing is that, the world being under the curse, all things eventually die through disease or age. Even with age, the weakening process brings a natural decay.
That being said, there are probably times when making that "one way ticket" is worth the expense but in general we do the best with what we have. This forum goes a long way to provide the information for the best conditions for our fish to prosper. Information is freely provided for all to evaluate.

Re: Autopsy Root Cause Analysis Department of Discus Fish.

I agree totally...must buy from a trusted source to have the best experience with discus or any fish....ty guys for your response....I love Simply Discus ! Ty AL ( people are mind blown when I tell people spirulina cause orange pigment ! ) Lol

Re: Autopsy Root Cause Analysis Department of Discus Fish.

Originally Posted by Johney Blaze

I agree totally...must buy from a trusted source to have the best experience with discus or any fish....ty guys for your response....I love Simply Discus ! Ty AL ( people are mind blown when I tell people spirulina cause orange pigment ! ) Lol

Re: Autopsy Root Cause Analysis Department of Discus Fish.

I would like to see this as a viable possibility as well. In a recent experience, I ordered 3 (x) and 3 (y) from someone. 5 months later, all three (x) discus died of nearly identical symptoms within just a few weeks of each other, while all three (y) were never affected and are perfectly fine and grew at an exceptional rate.